The delivery of web services promises to be the next wave of Internet based applications. In this regard, there has been a strong emphasis by software vendors and service providers, as of late, to implement web service-oriented architectures that will provide a means by which companies can expose their offerings as web services. In today's economy the Internet is not only being used to provide information and perform simple e-commerce transactions, but is also being used as a platform through which services are delivered to businesses and customers.
Heretofore, the primary focus of web service, software vendor, and other developers has been supporting providers in getting their specific web services up and running, as well as supporting customers in finding and accessing services. Following implementation and support of the web services provided by a company however, attention quickly shifts from creation and delivery of these web services to analyzing web service execution data in an effort to determine the effectiveness of specific advertising that may be incorporated into sometimes rather lengthy web page presentations.
In this regard, web based advertisers have long been interested in knowing whether their particular commercial presentation, information or advertisement has been viewed by a user. Still further, legal departments of web-based businesses are interested in knowing whether a user has actually seen an entire legal agreement provided by way of the web before clicking on an associated button that indicates that they have read and agree to the terms of the legal agreement.
Heretofore, some research and development has been directed to these types of business and management concerns. For example, various web page “hit counters” have been available for the last several years, and that permit a website owner, developer or interested party to count the numbers of users who have actually visited that web page or have accessed portions of the web page, or other cookies associated therewith.
While these previous prior art solutions have operated with some degree of success, they appear unsatisfactory, in part, because current web browser technology has typically pre-fetched images or portions of the web page that are often off-screen, or cannot be seen, and may never actually be viewed by the individual or end user who is accessing the website.
In view of the foregoing, the prior art approaches and technology provided to date falls far short of providing the salient information that is necessary for advertisers or other interested parties to make informed decisions regarding whether advertisements, commercial presentations or other information has been displayed and are otherwise effective, or further to provide information to other business teams within a company, such as a legal department, who would like to insure that end users have actually seen an entire legal agreement before they have agreed to the provisions of same.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a system and method that addresses one or more of the above issues.